Giving Birth To The Spirit

 

Romans 8:6: For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

The Bible begins with the creation of the heavens and the earth. God separates the light from the darkness, the water from the dry land, and the sky from the ground.

He puts the stars in their place and the sun in its place. He creates the animals and the plants. Lastly God takes the dust from the earth and forms it into the form of a man. God creates the person in His likeness.

But the person isn’t alive. All he is a form of a man. He is the likeness of a man. He is a vase, a statue, and an empty vessel lying on the ground.

He has no ability to get up and move. He is void and lifeless. It isn’t until God breathes on him that he comes to life.

Genesis 2:7: And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

It is the breath of God that makes the man alive.

Before God breathed on him, the man was just a pile of mud in the form of a human. After God breathes on him, Adam becomes a living soul.

 

Even today we celebrate this idea. We might believe that life begins at conception, but we don’t celebrate the day of our conception; we celebrate the day of our birth.

 

What makes our birthday so special?

It is the day we took our first breath.

It is the day they cut the cord and we became separate from our mother.

Just like Adam, it is the day we became a living soul.

 

Before we took our first breath we were living inside the womb. Today we know just how active a child is in the womb.

• We know that the heart starts beating in the 5^th week.
• The heartbeat can be easily detected with Doppler instruments around the 10^th week.
• Around the 12^th week the baby may start to suck its thumb.
• At 17 weeks the baby can be startled by loud noises.
• By week 28 the baby is moving quite regularly and is beginning to get cramped.

Mom, of course, is well aware of the baby by this time. She can feel it moving around.

Mom and baby already begin their relationship as a test of wills. When mom wants to sleep, the baby wants to dance and play soccer.

There is the beginning of a tension between what the baby wants to do, and what mom wants to do. Even though the baby has yet to take its first breath, mom can feel it moving inside of her.

In spite of all this, though, it is not until the baby takes it first breath that it becomes an independent person.

Until that point the baby is completely dependent on the mother to provide it with food, liquids, and oxygen.

After it takes that first breath, the baby becomes independent.

• Just like Adam, when God breathed into his nostrils, a baby becomes a living soul, an independent person.

Well, maybe not quite so independent.

Adam wasn’t independent; he needed God to provide for him.

Adam needed the Garden of Eden, which was watered by God to survive.

Likewise a baby needs its parents to care for it and to provide food and water, to change its diapers, to keep it safe.

 

Similar to the way a baby is formed in the image of its parents, so Adam was formed in the image of God. Just like a baby, Adam’s life did not start until he took his first breath.

That first breath signals the beginning of life, the day of your birth.